Walking Disaster
by krissyg927
Summary: This is Caryl. Daryl is recovering from a shocking divorce and moves in with Merle. Almost immediately he notices the pretty woman that lives across the street.
_**Just a little one shot that wouldn't leave me alone. That's been happening a lot lately.**_

The divorce was a shock and he hadn't seen it coming at all. One day he was married to his high school sweetheart and then the next day she had come home and said she wanted out. He had never seen in coming. She threw him out of their apartment without ceremony or discussion.

It was the greatest shock of his life.

Daryl left without much more than the clothes on his back and the few things he had wanted. They didn't have children so there was none of that messy nonsense when custody and child support had to be agreed upon. They would never see each other again and he was moving back home to Georgia eventually.

Merle was expecting him and it would take six hours to drive back home. He had the music turned up but it couldn't drown out the feeling of failure that was permeating his being. Merle didn't even tease him when he told him he was coming back.

Merle knew he was broken now, by someone who had vowed to love him forever. His voice on the phone had been enough for Merle not to tease like he always did. Daryl was a walking disaster thanks to that bitch of an ex-wife of his.

He had never heard Daryl so despondent as he was just a few days ago when he called and asked to move back in with him. Merle had offered to come pick him up, that's how worried he had been. But Daryl had said he wanted to clear his head and make the drive himself.

 _It had all been one big lie. So many years of his life based on a lie._

Merle never liked Shelby and he made no secret of it, he felt like she was using Daryl and that had been true. Merle didn't want it to be true, he didn't want to be right about her, and if his brother and Shelby could have made a happy life together that would have been great as far as Merle was concerned. But his brother worked his ass off putting that girl through college and grad school only to have her serve him with divorce papers before the ink was even dry on her diploma.

Shelby got a job as an oceanographer in Hawaii and Daryl didn't fit into her plans anymore, if he ever did, which Merle sincerely doubted. He was a means to an end to be disposed of as soon as she was done with him. Merle was not a violent man, but it was a very good thing that Shelby was moving out of state.

Now Daryl was broke and owed money everywhere for all the loans he helped her get for school. Twenty-eight and he was ruined financially by Shelby Blue Martinson. Soon he couldn't afford to live on his own anymore and had to come home.

He had managed for eight months in Atlanta before it became too hard to pay her bills and his own expenses. By the time he got to Merle he had been divorced almost a year and still feeling like it was all his fault. If he had just made more money or made her happier, she would have stayed.

 _Nothing was making her stay, but his mind told him that when times got lonely and dark._

Merle always said she had a stripper name, that was just one of the things that Merle didn't like about her and now she took back her former name. Shelby Blue Dixon was now Shelby Blue Martinson and good riddance as far as Merle was concerned. She hopped on a plane and wiped the dust of Georgia and his brother right off her feet.

Daryl was heartbroken and never saw it coming, Shelby had fooled him good.

Usually Merle and Daryl had that brotherly banter going on whenever they talked, but not this time. He asked to move in with him and for help finding a job and Merle had agreed right away. Merle never said a damn thing to him, not one joke. That's how Daryl knew he must have been bad, he must have sounded beaten into the ground on the phone.

Daryl drove on hoping to put this behind him but with no idea how to. Shelby had called him terrible names in the end and said things to him just to hurt him. She attacked every part of him in order to get him to sign the papers that were keeping her from going to Hawaii.

Her words about his high school education not being good enough, that she was better than him, that he would never be more than an auto mechanic. She said he would never amount to anything in life and that she was too good for him. Secretly, he agreed with her about that, as if he knew somewhere deep down inside of him that she would not stay with him.

Shelby said that she never loved him and couldn't stand him touching her. She said he made her skin crawl every time he looked at her and that he wasn't a real man. All things said so he would sign and be out of her life.

 _Now he was heading home and feeling like a failure in life, reviewing every minute of that last year with her, looking for a sign of what was coming._

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Merle sat outside the trailer he lived in on the porch drinking his morning coffee waiting for Daryl, who was due any time now. He had secured him a job at his friend Axel's car dealership as a mechanic. Merle sold cars there, he was a top producer because he was smooth as silk. Merle could sell condoms to a nun, Axel always said, and he was glad Merle was on his side and not selling for his competition.

It was all true, Merle had a way with words and more than one person said that very thing to him.

As he sipped his coffee that morning Merle saw the neighbor girl outside her house and he knew it was just a matter of time before she was over to his place. Sophia liked him for some odd reason that he was not going to fight, as he got older, he had mellowed out so much. Having people in his life was a pleasure now instead of a burden like when he was younger.

He could hear Carol's music coming from her place and he knew she was cleaning.

Carol was as predictable as the sunrise, Merle thought to himself as he looked at his watch. She and Sophia had been living across the street from him for almost two years now. He knew her routine and she knew his.

Every Saturday morning Carol put on 311, Pearl Jam or Soundgarden and sometimes Nirvana and cleaned her house. She worked a lot of hours during the week so she could have weekends off with Sophia. She cleaned every Saturday and then she and Sophia went to the library. Merle admired her and how hard she worked, she was his age and he swore she never took time for herself.

Sunday afternoons Merle, Carol and Sophia always had dinner together, then watched movies. She was his first ever female friend. It never crossed his mind to try and date her although she was a looker, something told him, something behind her eyes said that they would always just be friends.

 _Someone had hurt her, Merle was sure about that, and if he ever found out who, there would be hell to pay._

He and Carol were tight from day one and had each other's backs although it was strange to him to have a woman as a friend at first. He got used to it soon enough because she and Sophia would not be denied. They grew on him.

That was fine, you could never have too many friends and Carol actually gave good dating advice. He would never have asked out that pretty Lawyer Andrea Harrison if Carol hadn't told him to get over himself and just call her.

He looked across the street, at her house and thought about her, _she was his best friend now._

Right now she was listening to "Beautiful Disaster" and he saw Sophia bopping her head and singing the words in the front yard as usual. That kid had some far out music taste, thanks to her Mom. Just like he had influenced Daryl, back in the day. Sophia was a good kid and Merle enjoyed her almost as much as her mother. She had recently told Merle about this boy at school, Carl something or other and Merle was already trying to think of a way to scare this kid away.

He saw Sophia as his own and no boy was coming near her. No boys for his Sophia.

Sure enough he was spotted and then she was skipping across the dirt road to come say hi. She had her ever present cell phone in her hand like every kid her age.

"Hey Merle." She said in that sweet fifteen-year-old voice of hers. Sophia was a great kid and she and her mother had lived across the way from him so long that she went between each house frequently, as if they both were hers.

Carol had left her husband in Delaware, she never talked much about it, but Merle noticed when she first moved in that she had black and blue grab finger prints on her arm. It was then that he decided to look out for her and Sophia and a lasting friend ship was born. It was wonderful to have a friendship with no sexual expectations, another first for Merle.

"Hey Cookie." He said sipping his coffee.

"Whatcha doing?" Sophia said.

"Mowing the lawn." He replied looking at her with an amused expression on his face. It was so fun to mess with her.

"What lawn Merle." She said kicking the rocks in his rock lawn. All of the trailers in the park had rock lawns. "All you got here is some rocks, I bet you don't even own a lawnmower."

"You would win that bet Cookie; I'm waiting on my brother." Merle replied.

"You have a brother?"

"Yes." He said with a joking lilt to his voice. "I have a brother."

"What's his name?"

"Daryl."

"He coming to visit?" Sophia asked.

"Moving in." Merle said lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke away from the child.

"Doesn't he have anywhere to live."

"Nope, he's been in Atlanta, he's my little brother." Merle said and then he looked right at her.

"I'd love to see Atlanta someday." Sophia said absentmindedly.

"Fine, go to college there if you want. You are going still right?"

"Yes." She smiled at him. "Nothing's changed."

"Good, see that it doesn't. Now you listen to me Cookie. Don't you ever follow no man anywhere or let any man tell you what to do."

"Mom says the same thing." Sophia replied.

"Your Mom's right, my brother just about got his heart broken, following some woman, but that's between you and me, ok kid?" Merle said. "My brother is a walking disaster right now."

He said as he heard the truck pull onto the street he lived on, _speak of the devil and the devil appears._

"Sounds like baby brother now. Between you and me Cookie, ok?" He said throwing down his cigarette as the truck came down the road.

Sophia nodded, Merle was the coolest neighbor they ever had, and she wasn't stupid. She knew they were hiding out here in bumfuck Georgia because her father was crazy and she was happy Merle lived across the street. If her father ever found them she knew Merle would protect her and her mother.

The truck pulled up and he stood up. Daryl hadn't been home in years and Merle was a little shocked at how he looked. His hair was longer, which wasn't a big deal but he was so thin. This divorce had taken a toll on him.

"Hey brother." Merle said walking to the truck as Daryl came around the front. He looked ten years older since the last time Merle had seen him. The day he married that whore and she dragged him away to South Carolina to pay her bills for her.

Daryl was ten years younger than Merle and he looked like the older brother right now. It just about broke Merle's heart seeing him like this.

They hugged awkwardly and Merle introduced Sophia. She was sweet and shook Daryl's hand like her mother always told her to do when meeting someone new. "Pleased to meet you Mr. Dixon."

"Daryl." He replied.

The door to Carol's place opened and she was out on her front porch, having heard the truck pull up. She was dressed in a concert t-shirt and a pair of cut off shorts, her auburn hair up in a bun with tendrils of hair framing her face.

"Car, come here." Merle called to her. Carol waved and started down her stairs towards them. Merle turned to Daryl. "Carol is just about my best friend."

Daryl did a double take, best friend? Merle? A woman?

"That's my Mom." Sophia said to Daryl and he nodded. He didn't feel like meeting the neighbors but Merle wasn't moving from his spot in the road. He watched the woman as she walked over, she was short and dark haired, pretty. Not Merle's type, he knew Merle liked blondes, he couldn't get a handle on this. _This was so out of character for Merle._

"Hi, I'm Carol and I see you already met Sophia." She smiled at him.

"Daryl, nice to meet you." He took her hand and shook it, her hands were soft and pretty, much like her.

"So one more for dinner tomorrow Merle?" Carol said to Merle.

Merle nodded. "Yes, Daryl is moving in today, one more for dinner every week, if that's ok darlin."

"Of course its ok you big ass." She grinned at Merle and bumped shoulders with him. Daryl could not believe this. "Welcome to the neighborhood Daryl, come on Soph we have to get going."

"Ok, Merle its 'City of Angels' tomorrow night." Sophia said to him.

"Not again squirt, that movie makes me want to cut my own throat."

"Hello." Sophia said. "Iris?"

"Whatever." He answered knowing that tomorrow night he would be watching whatever that little girl told him he was watching.

Daryl took out a cigarette and lit it as he watched Carol walk away.

"She's hot aint she?" Merle said.

"She your woman or something." He asked taking a long drag on his cigarette.

"Nope, aint my type, you know that." Merle lit his own cigarette.

"What's this about dinner?" Daryl asked.

"Oh, we all eat Sunday dinner together." Merle said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. "Then we watch movies. The three of us, sometimes my girl Andrea comes too."

"You're shitting me."

"I shit you not brother, and now you're eating Sunday dinner with us too. Carol wants me to make salad, you can make garlic bread. She makes a slamming lasagna."

Merle started to walk towards the house and Daryl followed, still dumbfounded by this. His brother had a woman as a friend. Hell was freezing over for sure any minute.

"Want a coffee?" Merle asked him and Daryl nodded.

"You aint never fucked her?" Daryl asked suspiciously. His brother never said two words to a woman unless he was fucking her. At least that was how he used to be.

"Nope. I'm not into her like that." Merle stopped short and turned back to his brother. "She's my age, you know. Maybe I can ask her if she likes younger guys? You want me to?"

"Fuck you Merle." Daryl replied.

"Come on brother, you got to get back on the horse ya know?"

"I don't need you pimping me out to your neighbor." Merle opened the door and Daryl followed him into the house.

"Yes you do. Cause obviously you didn't see those legs of hers. Legs that would look good around your waist or your neck." Merle said with a cackle to his voice that was entirely Merle.

Merle got out a cup and poured Daryl some coffee.

"She know you talk about her that way?" Daryl said.

"Listen brother, Carol, unlike that uppity wife of yours can take a joke and doesn't try to cut my nuts off every time I make an innuendo, as long as Soph aint around. We's friends, we tease each other."

"Ex-wife, Shelby is my ex-wife." Daryl replied.

"Thank Christ for that." He put his arm around his brother's shoulders. "You sure you don't want me to ask her."

"Please don't Merle." He said sipping his coffee. "That's the last thing I need right now."

"You ask me it's the first thing you need."

"Whatever Merle."

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Seven weeks went by, seven Sunday dinners, seven weeks of working and keeping busy. Seven weeks of spending time with Carol and Sophia. Seven weeks of Sunday movies and talking about music and books. And Merle saw it. Merle saw a change happening in his brother, it was happening slowly and it was due to her. He had been right, she was his type, even if Daryl wasn't admitting it.

Seven weeks of being in the presence of a woman who wasn't after anything. Seven weeks of unconditional friendship with someone who had no agenda.

Seven weeks of Sophia's sunny personality and love of life. Seven weeks of her mother and he beautiful smile.

Daryl even tagged along with her and Sophia to the library on Saturdays sometimes. Merle noted that. He started to read books again and to smile sometimes, which was a welcome change. Daryl started to look better and put on some weight, his head lifted back up on his shoulders and he didn't look down all the time.

His eyes weren't down cast in shame and regret anymore. He wasn't sad and Merle breathed a sigh of relief.

Merle saw the way he looked at her when she wasn't looking. She looked at him too. Merle was watching. He watched the way they joked with each other, just like he and Carol did.

Sophia adored him too, they played X Box together and sometimes walked her to the corner store for ice cream. His brother had fit right in with Merle's little makeshift family, because that's what they were to him.

The change in his brother over the past few weeks was noticeable and Merle could have kissed her with gratitude because he knew it was her.

She worked a miracle and Merle could have sworn she was as much of a walking disaster as his brother was. They brought out something good in each other.

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Carol noticed him right from the start. Merle called him the sweet one and she noticed the differences between the two of them. Merle was a sweet one too, he just didn't like people to know it.

Merle was a great friend to her and to Sophia, she felt safe with him across the street and she knew he would defend them if it ever came to that. He was a big softie for women and children, Merle Dixon was a sweet one too.

Daryl was different though, quiet and hard to get to know. They shared a mutual love of music and he played X box with Sophia a few nights a week now. Sometimes she felt his eyes on her and more than a few times her eyes wandered to him.

Just the past weekend he had been washing his truck in the drive way, which he did on Saturday mornings now. She watched him from her window, shirtless, with his jeans hanging way too low and almost falling off his hips. Carol knew his wife had left him, Merle had told her that the first night.

For the life of her she could not understand that. He was attractive and lean, his stomach was flat and his shoulders just wide enough. He had great arms with not too much muscle and she felt like a dirty old woman looking at him. She was pushing forty and he wasn't even thirty yet. It was ok to look though, and she did.

Merle would have bet money on this happening and he saw it coming a mile away. That day the sun was out, hot from the jump and it was a Saturday morning, her cleaning day. Just like any other day in their neighborhood, but it wasn't just any other day.

 _The planets must have lined up or there was a full moon. Something made it happen on that particular May morning at nine am._

Daryl was washing his truck, shirtless as usual, and she had the music blasting, as usual. She went out on her front porch to shake one of the carpets out and he was standing at the end of his driveway looking at her.

"We going to the library later?" He called over to her.

"Sophia has a sleepover." She said walking down the stairs of her house.

He was disappointed as he walked across the street, he liked spending Saturday afternoons with them. Daryl made no secret about being disappointed either, he could be himself with her. It was such a relief.

"Damn, I was looking forward to it." He said.

 _It was something really, to be accepted for who you were. He knew what rejection felt like all too well._

He could hear her music coming from inside the house and he was humming 'Pretty Noose' by Soundgarden as he walked towards her. She once asked him why he liked all the music from her genre and he said growing up with Merle he had two choices with music, like it or lump it.

Then the earth tilted just enough so set something in motion.

It came to him like a bolt of lightning and it was like she was calling him and he couldn't look away from her. Not this time.

Merle had come out on his porch for a smoke and stopped short when he saw it. His brother was walking across the street and Carol was standing on the last step of her porch. Merle watched as Daryl walked up to her like he was on a mission.

Carol didn't see Merle because her gaze was locked on his much younger brother. He was looking right in her eyes as he came into her space.

The music changed, now it was 'Heroes' by David Bowie, as he brought his hands up to her cheeks. His lips were against hers softly and she yielded completely to him, pulling him close by the belt loops of his jeans.

 _Finally, Merle huffed as he lit his cigarette across the street._

"Tell me to stop." He said as his lips slid against hers and then down her neck, and then her hands were in his hair.

"Don't stop." She breathed out in a gasp, still holding him by his belt loops. His pants were hanging down his hips and she could see the boxer shorts he wore underneath. She pulled him closer and then up the stairs and into her house.

She shut the door behind her and he had her up against the door with his hands holding her gently at her cheeks and neck. The rest of him hard against her and she let out a groan.

"You sure?" He said in between kisses, next bringing his hands down to her waist.

She reached around him and pulled him against her. 'I'm sure, I'm sure."

Her hands going up against his hard chest and shoulders and her leg, wrapping around his and pulling him closer still.

"I'm no good at this." He said and she knew where that was coming from, occasionally she heard little pieces from either Daryl or Merle about what his ex-wife had said and done to him. Carol knew she was dealing with a broken man.

"Why don't you let me be the judge of that." She said kissing him deeply sliding her tongue against his in an obscene manner. Then she took his hand and slid it under her shirt and up to her breast.

She wasn't wearing a bra and he groaned out loud. "Jesus."

"Just forget everything except me and you and the music ok." She whispered into his ear.

 _We could be Heroes just for one day._

Then she was pulling him down the hallway by the hand. They stopped before her bedroom door and she kissed him again letting him take control of it this time. He pulled her against him, skin to skin and kissed her deeply.

He slid his tongue into her mouth and against hers. She knew that he was beaten down by what happened to him. But he was coming out of that shell rapidly, fasted then she thought, and then he grasped her under her legs and lifted her up carrying her to the bed.

"Wait when's…"

"Tomorrow." She replied. "I'm alone till tomorrow."

"No ya aint." He said tossing her onto the bed and crawling over her. His hands went to her shorts and slipped them off of her and down her legs. Then he stood up and took off his pants in a rush and joined her back on the bed quickly. They were both still wearing underwear but it didn't matter. They had plenty of time.

When he lay back on top of her he moved around until her legs slid open. "That's better." He said and kissed wet kisses down her neck. Carol reached up and ran her hands down his back, while wrapping her legs around his.

"Much better." She whispered, as he pulled her shirt up over her head. She lifted up to help him and then his lips were back on her. They were hot and slippery as he made his way down her neck to her breasts. Carol expected him to be nervous and tentative, but he wasn't. He was greedy and almost ravenous with his hands and lips all over her body. She could feel his dick against her and it was making her wet already.

She hadn't been with anyone in a long time and she wanted this.

"This ok?" He looked up at her from her breast that he had been running his tongue over. His eyes were two deep pools of blue that she wanted to jump into head first.

She responded by running her hand through his hair and nodding.

"Daryl you don't have to keep asking permission."

He slid his tongue against her nipple making her hiss with pleasure. "Been a while is all, I know it's important to have consent."

He dipped his head back down and ran his palm over her other breast, Carol arched her back off the bed.

"You have it, you have it." She sighed out as his lips moved down further to her belly, he licked around her belly button and she felt his fingers inch into her underwear.

"Ok, I can take these off then?" He looked up at her innocently.

'Daryl, quit fucking around." She laughed out.

"Oh sweetheart." He said pulling them off of her. "That's my specialty."

"I thought you were shy." She giggled as he took her legs and gently pushed them apart.

He didn't answer her, he just grinned and licked her knee, slowly making his way down her thigh. He set her blood on fire with every touch of his lips. And as he got lower she was burning up from it. Then his lips were on her and he was licking her so slowly.

He was torturing her in the most wonderful way.

Just when she thought she couldn't take anymore and she was about to fall apart he slid a finger inside her and she exploded. He waited until she rode it out with a smile on his face and a dizzying lust he hadn't felt in years.

"You are so beautiful Carol." He said bringing his face back up and kissing her, he pulled her up until they were both on their knees on the bed and held her close.

He ran his hands through her hair and kissed her again. His dick was throbbing and telling him to get on with it, but he couldn't be that guy. He wanted her so badly, but he wanted it to be good, for her first then himself. Then he remembered, he had no condoms, son of a fucking bitch

"I don't have…" He started to say.

'Oh, oh, it's fine, I had my tubes tied after Sophia and I haven't been with anyone since my ex."

"Me either."

She grinned at him. "Then lay down and get those off."

Daryl did as she said and then she slid down onto him slow as molasses. He thought he was going to die from the feeling of her all around him and he let out a gasp. It had been such a long time and he knew it wasn't going to last, not this time anyway.

She was so warm and so wet around him and he couldn't suppress the moans from coming out of his mouth.

The next time would be different and there would be a next time, preferably later today. He was going to give that a shot for sure.

"Oh my god." He said as he brought his hands to her hips.

"I know." She smiled down and kissed him sweetly before moving her hips. "I know."

Carol moved her hips back and forth slowly as she ran her hands over his hard chest and shoulders. She leaned down and kissed him but he wrapped his arms around her and rolled them over so that he was on top.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on until they were both covered in sweat and screaming. In reality it wasn't very long as he suspected, but he wasn't planning on this being a one-time thing.

He collapsed on top of her and slid half off so he wouldn't crush her. He knew she hadn't healed him completely but he was well on the way to being whole again.

"God that was fantastic." He said into her ear and then kissed her cheek. "What are you doing the rest of the day?"

She laughed and pulled the blanket over them. "Nothing, you wanna go to the library?"

He sat his head up on his arm and grinned at her. "Not even a little."

 _ **Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think.**_


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